Back to Reality

My heart is beating faster, my thoughts are more jumbled than usual, my list of things to get done while on vacation just stares at me as if willing me to function. That's the word I am searching for -functional. I am not that. I am non-functional, slowed down, rapidly deteriorating. Why, you ask? Well, even if nobody is asking I am about to tell you why.

This is the first Friday of the New Year, 2009, and the last official day of my vacation. Sure, I still have a full weekend ahead of me, but that doesn't count. This is seriously the LAST day of my glorious, wonderful, refreshing Christmas vacation. I refuse to call it a Holiday, it was definitely Christmas and it is definitely over. Here's where that famous saying should be inserted in the text: Bah Humbug.

I loved everything about my vacation. I loved the family collected and the chaos that comes with it. I loved the packages and presents and people and piles of paper.{I love alliteration} I loved the ten grandchildren , six of whom are now crazy 2 year olds! Have you ever tried to organize play amongst two year olds? How hilarious is that?!!They fight and sit next to each other and want exactly the toy the other one has, and now. The matching toy does not really work, they want that exact toy.Then, of course, there was the Family Picture Grammy needs as proof of the moment. Since I happen to be the Grammy and my sofa happens to be the location, I also have to do the coercion and cooperation control. Fortunately, these same 2 year olds also have a need for candy and presents and can be very easily bribed for little more than a candy cane. Next year they may remember the trick so I am already thinking of something subtle, yet sweet.







As you may have noticed, success was mine.

Returning to my heart racing symptoms, it feels almost like adrenaline coursing through my veins. I watch the hands on the clock as if by watching them I can slow down time. As anyone over the age of 50 can tell you , time just speeds up every year so obviously clock watching isn't the answer to my dilemma. What is my dilemma? I love my job about as well as anyone can love their job. The people are friendly, the hours are perfect, the pay is good, the benefits are a blessing and the work is not difficult. I consider myself a woman with a thankful heart so I am truly grateful God has given me this job. So what exactly is the problem?

I love my home. I loved my old role as Homemaker and Mother. I loved being a wife and managing a very tight bank budget. I love shopping for a bargain and really needing it. I like visiting neighbors spur of the moment and taking the elderly ones a bowl of homemade soup. Well, my soup isn't the greatest soup on the planet , to be sure, but it is homemade and it is tasty when there is a need for homemade. This vacation reminded me that I like just being. Nobody arguing with me over my job description or my techniques for class activities, or even when to have a snack. I can have a snack anytime I please, and eat whatever I care to, healthy or not.



Is there a point to this blog? Not really. I just decided to put down on paper(or the modern day equivalent to paper)my angst over beginning another year at a job rather than at Home. Interestingly, I am so thankful for God's gift of work for me I thank Him every single morning for it. I have several friends and a son who are currently laid off or unemployed and I pray diligently for them to become gainfully employed. I say gainfully because I think Internet gambling is such a waste of time!

My heartbeat is slowing a bit since writing this blog. Perhaps it's because the sun is still shining and the day is not yet over and I may still fit in a few cups of coffee. Or perhaps it's because one of my students at my job gave me a gift certificate to Dunkin Donuts and I have a very large apple fritter waiting to be devoured out in the kitchen. Well, come to think of it, I never would have been able to afford an over-priced apple fritter from DD had I not been working and had this kind student not loved me enough to thank me with a gift certificate....so round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows.....

Pier Pressure

Today I am reflective and tired and HOT and waiting for the storms to arrive. I tend to forget that my energy dissipates as the thermometer rises, but that being said, my resolve to keep the central a/c off for economic reasons has been successful and this small personal victory over the weather gives me little bubbles of joy. Why bubbles? Because as soon as the joy pops out something comes along to burst it.

The Pier. Isn't it just dillapidated and sad looking? I admit to being drawn to this same 59th Street fishing pier in Ocean City, NJ everytime we visit, which is fairly often since it is less than a tank of gas away. When our family first started vacationing in this seaside town we actually climbed rocks giving us a better view of the little fisherman's house at the end. Although an off limits sign did exist, one could carefully climb up onto the pier and venture out to the end. That dates me,to be sure, since the little house has been down as long as my husband has been gone(everything in my life is BHL and AHL- you got it).Oh , 7 years this summer -remember my Year of Jubilee?

This year it was particularly bedraggled looking and I took several pictures from different angles as we photographer types are inclined to do. Maybe this side, maybe that side, maybe with the birds, maybe without the sun, maybe with a surfer in the background, all attempts at the perfect shot. You notice I didn't say maybe with me on it? Yikes, scary thought.



However, I did have a chance to think of myself in light of the Pier and aging and falling apart. I guess metaphors and I are friends these days. I looked at the Pier, and thought immediately that it was sad how it had aged so much more from this year since the winter when I saw it last. Apparently the Nor'easter that blew through the East coast gave it quite a battering. But it stood it's ground!! Hip- Hip- Hooray for my Pier!! More storms will arrive and yet I am fairly sure it will take more than just a storm of life to knock this guy completely over. It may just collapse someday when the sea is calm and there are no clouds in the sky, or it may be swept out to sea in a Hurricane. Perhaps the town will decide it isn't worth saving or the danger of collapse is greater than the picturesque worth, making it a tourist detraction instead of attraction. But nonetheless, my Pier is developing character and strength and even beauty. At first glance , along with the remembrances we have of the original, new Pier, that beautiful comment appears a bit odd. But truly, the more I photographed the Pier, the more beautiful I found it to be, weathered and all.

When I spent time on the Boardwalk of Ocean City later in the week, I had a chance to take a snapshot of the newer, upgraded fishing Pier. I took one token photograph, B-O-R-I-N-G comes to mind.


Well, when I am feeling insecure on the Beach (or perhaps anywhere else these days...) and I feel old and weathered and falling apart, I think I will remember my Pier friend and not cave in to the pressures around me and glamorize the brand new, untested by time and trials, women. I think perhaps, unlike in my youth when I refused to let people take my picture, I might tell them to try a different angle and capture the more interesting side of me.




Finally, one of the favorite parts of my Pier pictures I only observed after I had returned home and was critiquing each one for merit. There is a CROSS pointed heavenward on the favorite ones!! That is how I want to be remembered - pointing heavenward because of Jesus on the Cross.